The NBA Thread

[Ignatius]

The only similarity I see between Bowen and RJ (besides their position) is that RJ is decently accurate from the corner (but he's also accurate from other places). I guess they're also both bald and about six and a half feet tall. The Spurs tried to find a replacement for Bowen, most notably with Keith Bogans last year, and I think Popovich recognized that it would be easier to change the model than try to find a new Bruce Bowen. Also Tim Duncan doesn't draw the double team consistently any more, so it's much harder to justify starting someone who can only score when left wide open in the corner.

RJ's definitely improved defensively, and adding a guy who can score when Manu's shots aren't falling and Tony can't penetrate all by himself makes a huge difference for that team.

The hot start is encouraging, and shutting down the Jazz (who swept them in four games btw. October and Decemeber last season) was especially impressive. But they also haven't started a season with the big 3 this healthy since 2007, and they've played the Clippers twice, as well as GS, Cleveland, etc. And they've been shooting the lights out from the 3 pt. line, which scares me a bit.

Pretty good team, though. 4 starters capable of scoring 20 apiece on any given night, and Tony's having the best season of his career so far. I think he's got a bit of a chip on his shoulder this year now that he's fallen out of the Best PG conversation altogether in the past two seasons or so. His head-to-head playoff victories over Deron Williams, Chris Paul, Steve Nash, Steve Nash, Steve Nash and Steve Nash are well in the past now, and he wants to prove he's still relevant.

But if they can get their team defense together, they're definitely capable of beating anyone on any night.

[Babar]

I gotta actually sit down and watch a whole Clippers game. Just watched Blake Griffin's top 10 dunks of the season. Wow.

Anybody gonna watch Cavs-Heat tonight? Shit about to go DOWN.

[Ignatius]

He tears through teams, but until last night's game against the Spurs it hasn't helped the Clippers win any.

[Babar]

But the dunks... oh, the dunks.

Did I mention the dunks already? Dunks. There.

[Ignatius]

He's really really good at jumping. He's got good touch around the rim, too, but why do anything else when you're a dunkin' monster like that?

[dumbfish]

Oddly enough, Griffin isn't blocking many shots yet. It's not a question of physical ability-- if you can jump over a 7 foot guy, you can block shots-- it's timing and (maybe) his role in del Negro's defense. Anyone watch enough Clips games to know?

Griffin is Shawn Kemp with a work ethic.

[Ignatius]

I've seen two or three and last night was the first time he's played enough minutes to be a factor. His one block in that game was probably a goaltend on a floater. On a lot of drives the Clips collapsed in the paint before the guy with the ball could get a good shot up. Otherwise he played pretty good man defense against Tim Duncan, or he was way out guarding Matt Bonner by the 3 pt. line. The Clippers didn't chase shooters off the line very well but they played pretty decent team defense otherwise, so there weren't a ton of guys penetrating and throwing up blockable shots near the rim.

The Spur's guards and DeJuan Blair scored almost from underneath Blake Griffin on a few possessions, and the Spurs got a ton of offensive rebounds, though. He's better at running and making cuts to the basket then he is at posting up and getting in good position to make big plays on defense, I guess.

He kind of reminds me of Amare before the knee surgeries, but then I didn't pay too much attention to Shawn Kemp in his heyday.

[dumbfish]

Put DeJuan Blair's mind in Shawn Kemp's body and you have the best PF ever.
(Not counting Duncan, he's a C even if he insists he isn't.)

[Ignatius]

Apparently, he's been begging Gregg Popovich to let him run the point for years to no avail.

[Babar]

I like this little moment between Amar'e and Griffin.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cqs0Zf_TJ2c

[Captain]

On the Miami v Cleveland game tonight: Little bummed that the nation is gonna be tuning in to see how Cleveland reacts.  Even more bummed that it's being promoted the way it is... I thought the 7500-word frontpager from ESPN on Cleveland and sports was a pile of shit.

I really hope the fans behave... I think they will.  They will.

[Ignatius]

The coverage is pretty gross, but I hope they make him super uncomfortable on the floor, without getting creepy or threatening.

eta: I had no interest in reading that "Believeland" piece so I stayed far away, but I'm pretty stoked that all the craziness has totally swallowed any mention of the Spurs' loss to perhaps the worst team in the NBA.

[Babar]

On an unrelated note: I was thinking when fans try to distract the attention of an opposing free-throw shooter they usually boo or wave their hands. Now, NBA rules state that when shooting free-throws the player shouldn't take more than 10 seconds before shooting the free-throw even though it's not really enforced. A few players really take their time and are more around the 15 seconds mark, I'm especially thinking of Dwight Howard regarding this. What if all the opposing fans would count loudly from 10 every time Dwight takes a free throw? I think that would actually throw him off a little bit since the booing and hand-waving is so standard.

[Ignatius]

You're a weird guy, babar, tryna revolutionize the free throw taunt. It reminds me of when the crowd counts down the shot clock for the home team...

[hannah]

Cleveland did cheer Ilgauskas

[hannah]

Also, count down from ten all you want, but dig Pelosi's freethrow form

[Ignatius]

The weirdest part of this game is when Zydrunas Ilgauskas defends Anderson Varejao.

[dumbfish]

Karl Malone's routine took ca. 14 seconds. Crowds would count all the time. Refs never called it, as far as I know.

[Babar]

It's more about throwing the guy off and make him self-conscious.

I remember when I used to play little league basketball and sometimes the bench of the team without the ball would dramatically start counting down from ten like there were 10 seconds left in the game (there was no shot-clock) and the poor kid who had the ball when they reached "ONE!" would panic and shoot a no-brainer shot and turn over the ball while there was actually like a minute left in the game. The coaches tried to over-shout the kids "DON'T LISTEN TO THEM THERE'S PLENTY OF TIME" which was probably just fuel on the panic-fire, having a grown man shouting to boot. Sometimes it was just kids waiting between games who started counting just to fuck around and have fun.

Btw Cavs-Heat = Snooze fest

[jm]

Dear the People of Cleveland and Environs:

You do understand that athletes change teams like, all the time, right?  And that if one athlete on your team is driving your entire city, that maybe you have bigger problems that getting pissed off at him is not going to solve?

Go fuck yourselves,

jm

[Captain]

JM,

Certainly it is understood that athletes are not, in fact, representations and creations of the city they play for, nor does the fact that an athlete was born/raised in an area near the city they play for mean that an athlete has any more loyalty to a city than any other individual born from that city would.  Further, it is understood that an athlete is, fundamentally, an entertainer--not a warrior spirit/savior for the city.

Nonetheless, the mythos of the Cleveland sports fan as well as the absolutely unheralded talent that arose in Mr. James resulted in his becoming a zeitgeist of sorts for the city of Cleveland.  His subsequent departure is less a betrayal but more a microcosm (albeit an artificial one) of the bad fortune of Cleveland.  If emotions run high, this may be the reason why.

That said, the vitriol that has been directed at Mr. James does seem a bit reactionary and unwarranted.  Point taken.  But try not to take the loudest and most offensive voices as representative the majority.  We'd like to believe that most can understand and appreciate the reasons why Mr. James left for Miami--even if we find them a bit unpalatable.  Only a game, etc.

Sincerely,
People of Cleveland & Environs

[jm]

Captain: out of curiosity, are you of the Cleveland area?

[Captain]

Captain: out of curiosity, are you of the Cleveland area?

Yes.  Though, in retrospect, still a bit ballsy for me to sign as "People of Cleveland..."

[jm]

ah ha!

As a Northeast Ohioer myself, I've seen nothing but hate for LeBron ever since he decided to leave.  Which is understandable, to a degree.  But the extent to which my acquaintances "back home" have taken their utterly petty grudge seems kind of extreme, to me.

And there's a second component to my distaste for Cleveland fans, and it has to do with things like this:

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2010/11/17/mother-of-8yearold-jets-f_n_784668.html *

and my even more favorite story, which is the fact that the first football game I attended in more than ten years was the one that had to be called because Cleveland fans, like the fucking obese, drunken children they are, threw glass bottles indiscriminately toward the field due to what they deemed a "bad call".**  That game was the reason you can't get glass bottles at major league sporting events anymore.  Needless to say, that was the last football game I attended. 

Cleveland's sports fans fucking embarrass me***, so much more so than those louts in Boston or New York, and I have lived both of those places, too.

* sorry about the huffpo
** I'll be honest: it was a bad call.
*** of course, not literally all of them, no.

[Babar]

I hope the game last night will bring some closure to the whole situation.